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Anna Faris shocked Mom fans when she suddenly left the CBS sitcom in September, but the show is carrying on without her. Now, Allison Janney will lead the series, which returns with brand-new episodes this evening. Ahead of the Season 8 premiere, Mom showrunner Gemma Baker sat down for an interview with Entertainment Weekly, revealing Christy’s (Faris) fate and how the show is planning to deal with her exit. Thankfully, that doesn’t involve killing off the character, a solution which Baker said was “never considered.”
“Although our show has killed characters off in the past, we never considered this as an option for Christy,” she said. “Our audience has been rooting for her for seven seasons and that loss felt like it would be too devastating for them and for our other characters. It was important to us that Christy moved on to bigger things.
“Quite often when people are in recovery their lives get bigger in ways they couldn’t before have imagined. And so that will be the case for Christy,” Baker continued. “She has been working toward her dreams for a while now and we feel like the audience will be happy for her. The character of Christy will live on and we will continue to get updates on what she is up to and how her moving on will affect Bonnie.”
Janney, who stars as Bonnie, opened up about how losing her costar affected the show and her own character. The actress told Entertainment Tonight this week that Faris’s departure was a “huge loss,” but dropped some hints about what to expect next from Mom, confirming that Season 8 will place more focus on Bonnie’s relationship with her husband, Adam (William Fichtner).
“It’s a huge loss for the show to not have Anna because she was part of creating a character, Christy, that everyone fell in love with, who was so lovable and warm and gullible and funny and we will miss her so much,” Janney said. “I think I’ll miss the most, for me, the relationship between Bonnie and Christy, even though that will still continue. But she won’t be present. That’s what I’ll miss.”
Mom Season 8 premieres at 9/8c tonight on CBS.